iPod Touch in High Schools - Benefits, Applications and Problems

The iPod touch can be a wonderful educational tool for high schools. It’s a highly mobile device which has wireless Internet access, and there is a huge collection of free or inexpensive iPod touch applications suitable for educational use. There are apps for accessing information, exploring, creating, problem solving, communicating and storing data. iPod touches are great portable computers, in addition to being entertainment devices, and are relatively inexpensive compared to other small computers. Today’s students live in a digital age and enthusiastically embrace the use of portable electronic devices. However, despite all the benefits, iPod touch use in high schools does have some drawbacks.

In the high school where I teach we have a wireless network, so students and staff can access the Internet and their documents on the file server from anywhere in the building (or from the parking lot, which makes you wonder about the effects of all the wireless waves traveling through our bodies - but that’s another topic!).

The school’s computers are a valuable educational resource, but there is only one computer lab in the school, and it’s also used as a regular classroom. If an Information Technology class is taking place in the lab, or if another teacher has reserved the computers before me, my class will have to wait before they can access the computer lab. Sometimes this is fine, but at other times – especially when the students are working on a research project, or when their use of a particular website would be a great enhancement to the topic that I’m teaching – it’s inconvenient. iPod touches and other small electronic devices solve the problem of having no computers to access a wireless Internet.

Once applications have been downloaded from the App Store in iTunes, iPod touches don't need to access the Internet in order to be useful for schools. Some apps require Internet access to be fully functional, but many don't. The App Store describes the features of each application and has reviews and a link to the creator's website to help someone choose which application in a category best suits their needs.

There is often a very large number of applications that can be downloaded in each category - usually over a hundred - and I haven't tried all the educational apps that are suitable for high school students in each category. For example, there are many different art programs available from the App Store, as well as many music programs, many scientific calculators and many periodic table applications. I'll name the apps that I use in each of the following categories, but you might well find others which you prefer.

The iPod touch onscreen keyboard is best suited for typing notes rather than long documents. Evernote is a free app that lets users type a note on the iPod, save it and then, if they wish, upload it to an Evernote server to be stored online. The app also saves and uploads web clippings, voice memos and photos taken with the camera on the latest version of the iPod touch. Later, the note and media can be downloaded from the Evernote server on to a computer that has the free Evernote program installed, where it can be modified or expanded if desired, saved and printed. The Evernote Corporation claims that their servers are very secure, but I still think that students should be told not to upload anything confidential, such as their address.

Students can share notes created in Evernote with other students, or with teachers, if they wish. Evernote also lets students add tags to notes so that material can be searched for easily. Evernote is free, although you can pay for more online storage space. The paid version also allows a wider variety of file formats to be synced and removes advertising.

Painting

I love the "Brushes" application. With practice, students can create beautiful art using this app. It also lets them import photos taken by the iPod camera or from the iPod photo album and modify them. The user's brush strokes are recorded. The file storing the brush strokes can be uploaded to the Brushes server, then downloaded on to the user's computer. The file can then be opened in a free Macintosh program called "Brushes Viewer", which allows the user to recreate the painting at high resolution.

Music Creation

I create music in a program called "Pianist" by MooCow Music. This program produces a realistic piano sound and is great fun to use. It lets the user play the full piano keyboard by clicking the arrow keys, allows him or her to display two sections of the keyboard at once and play two notes at a time. There are soft and sustain settings. The program has a metronome and the music can be recorded. More notes can be overdubbed on to the recording and the new recording saved. Recordings can be edited, since they are saved as a series of notes instead of an audio file.

Reading

My favorite reading app on the iPod touch is Stanza. Stanza is a free app that opens a variety of book files, including ePub, eReader and PDF's, and allows a person to download books within the application. It has several features that give a comfortable and convenient reading experience. Stanza and other reading apps are a great way for a student to carry around a library in their pocket!

Dictionaries and Thesauri

My favorite dictionary so far is called "Word Book". The app contains a dictionary and thesaurus and has good search functions. If the student is connected to the Internet the audio pronunciation of each word is given. There is a word of the day function, and the app links to Wikipedia for more information about a word.

Learning Another Language

This is one area that I haven't yet explored on the iPod touch, but the App Store has many applications that teach many different languages.

Google Earth is another wonderful and free application, but it does require access to the Internet to work and sometimes does its job slowly. It's worth the short wait, though, to be able to explore the world on the iPod touch! Like Google Earth, the Google Maps program that comes with the iPod touch also accesses impressive satellite imagery. It's worth downloading Google Earth, though, for its extra functionality.

Scientific Calculators, Graphing Calculators and Unit Converters

The iPod has a good built-in scientific calculator, which is all that I need, but there are calculators with more features available at the App Store, including financial calculators and graphing calculators that are cheaper to buy than a physical graphing calculator. I use a unit converter program called "Converter", created by Architechies, which is simple to use and performs unit conversions in many areas, including currency. The latest currency values are easily updated in the application with the touch of a button when Internet access is available.

Periodic Tables

You may wonder why an iPod periodic table app is useful when the periodic table is published in so many science textbooks and planners. The interactive applications have several advantages compared to a printed periodic table. For example, the app on my iPod, called "The Chemical Touch", is touch-sensitive and gives more data about each element than is found in a printed table. The table can be instantly recolored based on different properties to show trends in the table. The app also gives structural formulas and much more information for amino acids and nucleic acid bases, as well as a genetic code table, which is very useful in biology. An internet button enables the app user to go to Wikipedia to get more information about an element, amino acid or base.

Stopwatch and Timer

The built-in stopwatch and timer are useful for measuring time intervals during science experiments.

iTunes

Although iTunes is usually thought of as an entertainment application it's actually very useful for education too. There is a huge variety of podcasts that can be downloaded for free in iTunes. The podcasts are a fabulous learning resource. A student (of any age!) can use podcasts to learn a language or to learn about music, health, religion, history, science and many other subjects. iTunes University lets users download free lectures and podcasts from universities, museums and TV and radio stations. If you're willing to pay, the iTunes store also enables a person to purchase music in different genres as well as informative audiobooks, television shows, movies and audiobooks.

Radio Apps

Like iTunes, a radio application can be used just for entertainment but can also be used for education. I use a great and inexpensive application called TuneIn Radio. The app lets me listen to many different radio stations (over 50,000 in TuneIn Radio Pro, according to the creator), including music in many different genres, news stations, public radio and international radio. The app also lets you record radio.

Books

The built-in Books application lets people purchase and store books on the iPod touch. Some of the books are very inexpensive while others are more expensive.

Built- In Organizer Apps

The iPod touch is useful as an organizer for students without downloading any additional software. There's a basic notes program for entering information. The calendar can be used for recording important dates, such as due dates for assignments and test dates, and setting an alert to remind the student of an event. The iPod touch also has a clock and alarm app. The built in calculator turns into a scientific calculator when the iPod is rotated into landscape mode.

Unless a school has students that come from wealthy families, some students may not be able to afford an iPod touch. In this case requiring the purchase of one as part of school supplies is unfair. Even leaving the purchase optional may be problematic, because then some students have the benefits of the device and others don’t. One solution which some schools use is to buy a class set of iPod Touches.

Another solution for schools who can’t afford or don’t want to buy iPod touches but need to use a wireless Internet setup is for students to share their electronic devices. I teach in a small school that stresses cooperation amongst the students, and they are very willing to share laptops and loan their iPods to students in other classes when they need them. If the computer lab is being used by another class we often have enough laptops, netbooks, ipod touches and cell phones in my class for everyone to have access to the Internet. However, this system doesn't work if a teacher wants all the students in a class to use an iPod touch app.

In my school we have a strict rule that iPod touches and similar small electronic devices can’t be used in class unless the teacher gives permission, since students sometimes try to sneakily use an electronic device when they should be doing something else. In addition, despite the great selection of educational applications available for the iPod touch and its useful ability to access the Internet, there is another problem with iPod touch use as far as supervisors are concerned – its small screen. It’s easy to see what a student is doing on their laptop when a teacher wanders around a classroom while students are working on an assignment, but not so easy to see what's happening on the much smaller iPod Touch screen unless you look closely at it. The students in my school are pretty good about staying on task when they're using their electronic devices for a specific reason, but there are potential distractions - like Facebook, which is extremely popular.

Another problem with iPod touch use, or with the use of any computer, is that it's not appropriate to rely on certain applications when a student hasn't mastered basic skills without a computer. Students need to be able to spell without relying on the spell check function of a word processing program, and they need to be able to do basic math calculations without using a calculator.

Despite the problems associated with iPod touch use in high schools, the device is a great educational resource and can be used in many creative ways. As interesting applications continue to be created for the iPod touch (and the iPhone) the possible ways to enhance students' learning with electronic devices is increasing.